General Information (All Information Obtained from this website. )
What is an Eating Disorder?

Eating Disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder include extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding weight and food issues.


They are serious emotional and physical problems that can have life-threatening consequences for females and males.


ANOREXIA NERVOSA is characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.

Symptoms include:

• Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for height, body type, age, and activity level
• Intense fear of weight gain or being “fat”
• Feeling “fat” or overweight despite dramatic weight loss
• Loss of menstrual periods
• Extreme concern with body weight and shape

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BULIMIA NERVOSA is characterized by a secretive cycle of binge eating followed by purging. Bulimia includes eating large amounts of food--more than most people would eat in one meal--in short periods of time, then getting rid of the food and calories through vomiting, laxative abuse, or over-exercising.

Symptoms include:
• Repeated episodes of bingeing and purging
• Feeling out of control during a binge and eating beyond the point of comfortable fullness
• Purging after a binge, (typically by self-induced vomiting, abuse of laxatives, diet pills and/or diuretics, excessive exercise, or fasting)
• Frequent dieting
• Extreme concern with body weight and shape

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BINGE EATING DISORDER (also known as COMPULSIVE OVEREATING) is characterized primarily by periods of uncontrolled, impulsive, or continuous eating beyond the point of feeling comfortably full. While there is no purging, there may be sporadic fasts or repetitive diets and often feelings of shame or self-hatred after a binge. People who overeat compulsively may struggle with anxiety, depression, and loneliness, which can contribute to their unhealthy episodes of binge eating. Body weight may vary from normal to mild, moderate, or severe obesity.

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OTHER EATING DISORDERS can include some combination of the signs and symptoms of anorexia, bulimia, and/or binge eating disorder. While these behaviors may not be clinically considered a full syndrome eating disorder, they can still be physically dangerous and emotionally draining. All eating disorders require professional help.

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Athletes and Eating Disorders

In a study of Division 1 NCAA athletes, over one-third of female athletes reported attitudes and symptoms placing them at risk for anorexia nervosa. Though most athletes with eating disorders are female, male athletes are also at risk --especially those competing in sports that tend to place an emphasis on the athlete’s diet, appearance, size, and weight requirements.



Involvement in organized sports can offer many benefits, such as improved self-esteem and body image and encouragement for individuals to remain active throughout their lives. Athletic competition, however, can also cause severe psychological and physical stress. When the pressures of athletic competition are added to an existing cultural emphasis on thinness, the risks increase for athletes to develop disordered eating. In a study of Division 1 NCAA athletes, over one-third of female athletes reported attitudes and symptoms placing them at risk for anorexia nervosa. Though most athletes with eating disorders are female, male athletes are also at risk --especially those competing in sports that tend to place an emphasis on the athlete’s diet, appearance, size, and weight requirements, such as wrestling, bodybuilding, crew, running, and football.

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Risk Factors for Athletes:

Sports that emphasize appearance or weight requirements. For example: gymnastics, diving, bodybuilding or wrestling- i.e. wrestlers trying to “make weight”.
Sports that focus on the individual rather than the entire team. For example: gymnastics, running, figure skating, dance or diving, vs. basketball or soccer.
Endurance sports. For example: track and field/running, swimming.
Inaccurate belief that lower body weight will improve performance.
Training for a sport since childhood or being an elite athlete.
Low self-esteem, family dysfunction, families with eating disorders, chronic dieting, history of physical or sexual abuse, peer, family and cultural pressures to be thin, and other traumatic life experiences.
Coaches who focus only on success and performance rather than on the athlete as a whole person.

Three factors have been thought to contribute to the odds that a person will be dissatisfied with his or her body: social influences, performance anxiety and the athlete’s self-appraisal.

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Protective Factors for Athletes:
Positive, person-oriented coaching style rather than negative, performance-oriented coaching style.
Social influence and support from teammates with healthy attitudes towards size and shape.
Coaches who emphasize factors that contribute to personal success such as motivation and enthusiasm rather than body weight or shape.

The Female Athlete Triad includes 1) disordered eating, 2) loss of menstrual periods and 3) osteoporosis (loss of calcium resulting in weak bones). The lack of nutrition resulting from disordered eating can cause the loss of several or more consecutive periods. This in turn leads to calcium and bone loss, putting the athlete at greatly increased risk for stress fractures of the bones. Each of these conditions is a medical concern. Together they create serious health risks that may be life-threatening. While any female athlete can develop the triad, adolescent girls are most at risk because of the active biological changes and growth spurts, peer and social pressures, and rapidly changing life circumstances that go along with the teenage years. Males may develop similar syndromes.
The International Olympic Committee has published recommendations for reducing the risk of the Female Athlete Triad, available here.

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What Causes Eating Disorders?

While eating disorders may begin with preoccupations with food and weight, they are most often about much more than food.


Eating disorders are complex conditions that arise from a combination of long-standing behavioral, emotional, psychological, interpersonal, and social factors. Scientists and researchers are still learning about the underlying causes of these emotionally and physically damaging conditions. We do know, however, about some of the general issues that can contribute to the development of eating disorders.
People with eating disorders often use food and the control of food in an attempt to compensate for feelings and emotions that may otherwise seem over-whelming. For some, dieting, bingeing, and purging may begin as a way to cope with painful emotions and to feel in control of one’s life, but ultimately, these behaviors will damage a person’s physical and emotional health, self-esteem, and sense of competence and control.

Psychological Factors that can Contribute to Eating Disorders:

• Low self-esteem
• Feelings of inadequacy or lack of control in life
• Depression, anxiety, anger, or loneliness

Interpersonal Factors that Can Contribute to Eating Disorders:

• Troubled family and personal relationships
• Difficulty expressing emotions and feelings
• History of being teased or ridiculed based on size or weight
• History of physical or sexual abuse
• Social Factors that Can Contribute to Eating Disorders:

Cultural pressures that glorify "thinness" and place value on obtaining the "perfect body"
Narrow definitions of beauty that include only women and men of specific body weights and shapes
Cultural norms that value people on the basis of physical appearance and not inner qualities and strengths

Other Factors that can Contribute to Eating Disorders:

Scientists are still researching possible biochemical or biological causes of eating disorders. In some individuals with eating disorders, certain chemicals in the brain that control hunger, appetite, and digestion have been found to be imbalanced. The exact meaning and implications of these imbalances remains under investigation.


Eating disorders are complex conditions that can arise from a variety of potential causes. Once started, however, they can create a self-perpetuating cycle of physical and emotional destruction.
All eating disorders require professional help.